Community and Protective Services Committee

WHEREAS: on March 11, 2020 the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic and; WHEREAS: on March 17, 2020 the Province declared an emergency under Subsection 7.0.1 (1) of the Emergency Management and Civil Protection Act and; WHEREAS: on March 25, 2020 the City of Ottawa declared an emergency pursuant to Subsection 4(1) of the Emergency Management and Civil Protection Act and; WHEREAS: on June 17, 2020 the Province extended all emergency orders currently in force under s.7.0.2 (4) of the Emergency Management and Civil Protection Act due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and; WHEREAS: These necessary measures continue to cause unprecedented financial pressures and constraints on current and future budgets, with the scale of impacts yet to be determined and; WHEREAS: In addition to the unprecedented financial pressures the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in City staff and community partners operating at a diminished capacity having redeployed staff and redirected resources towards the COVID-19 response, which continues to be the ongoing and top priority and; WHEREAS: The City continues the operation of isolation, respite, and physical distancing centers, for at-risk people experiencing homelessness, creating a temporary depletion of current available staff resources for the implementation of workplans and certain priorities and; WHEREAS A long-range financial plan will be presented in Q3 2020 outlining the funding required to maintain current service levels, re

WHEREAS the 10-Year Housing and Homelessness Plan 2020-2030 (The Plan) identifies three overarching goals: everyone has a home, people get the support they need, we work together. WHEREAS the goal of we work together identifies the following tactic and strategic action: improve data collection methods, reporting and access for use by partners and system planning; WHEREAS the Plan also identifies the need to: create a robust data strategy so that accurate and quality data is available for system planning, program development and funding decisions; WHEREAS the Community and Social Services Department has a newly created team, Social Policy, Research and Analytics mandated to advance the use of data and analytics to enable evidence-based decision making, service planning, and social policy; WHEREAS community consultations also highlighted the need for real time data to be readily available to support community planning and improve program delivery, in addition to more publicly available data in general; WHEREAS improved data collection is needed to equip Council in making evidence-based decisions and to ensure proper oversight as it relates to housing priorities and investments; THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the Community and Protective Services Committee recommend Council direct the Community and Social Services Department to work with Ottawa Open Data and report back to the Community and Protective Services Committee by the end of Q1, 2021 on the inclusion of the data strategy

WHEREAS Housing is one of the most fundamental human needs; and WHEREAS it is well documented that poor housing conditions and high housing costs leads to stress for individuals and families, affecting their physical and mental health and resulting in increased use of health and social services. Children who experience housing insecurity due to frequent moves have been found to under-perform in school with lasting consequences on their capacity to participate in the labour market; and WHEREAS as of December 2019, female led households represented over 56% of those households on the centralized wait list; and WHEREAS the low vacancy rates for larger affordable rental units disproportionately affects lower income families who may need to pursue alternative options such as subsidized housing or emergency shelters; and WHEREAS nightly demand surpasses the shelter systems permanent bed capacity, which results in shelter providers having to regularly resort to using overflow spaces. Specific to families, in 2019, family shelters were operating at 165% above permanent bed capacity; and WHEREAS families experiencing chronic homelessness has grown by 320%, from 79 families in 2014 to 332 families in 2019; and WHEREAS in 2019 chronic family units account for 28.1 % of all family units, the highest percentage of any category; and WHEREAS the City’s use of overflow options such as hotels and motels, when the family shelter system is at capacity, has increased by 191 per cent from 2014 to